I am a horrible wretched excuse for a human being, but that snotty waiter deserved it. Maybe.

Okay, I'm not really sure why this story popped into my head today.  Maybe because I'm hungry.  Maybe because the very first posts on this blog were about my trip to Italy.  Maybe because sometimes I remember some horrible things I've done and am filled with self loathing.

This post includes all three.

There was a story I left off my original Italian travel postings.

Mainly because I was afraid they'd find me.

You remember the mall parking lot scene from Back to the Future where Doc tells Marty with disbelief, "Oh my God, they found me. They actually found me!"

Doc was talking about Libyan terrorists or something.

I'm talking about a waiter.  In Rome.  A Roman waiter.  Perhaps they are as savage as gladiators.  Or the mafia.  They never forget.

Anyway, maybe enough time has gone by to tell the story.

The story is called: The First and Last Time I did a Dine and Dash in Rome Because that Waiter was a Ginormous Ass and Totally Deserved it!

It was one of our last nights in Rome and I had read a good review of a restaurant.  I don't really remember where, the north part of the city, in one the hills overlooking the Colosseum.  After much trodding up and down cobblestone streets we found the restaurant.

It was dusk.  It was chilly.  We looked at the menu.  It was a little more expensive than most of the restaurants we had gone to, but I figured it would be good.  I looked in through the windows and it was a lovely Osteria style restaurant and about half full.  With locals. Which is a good sign.

The outside of the restaurant had a front terrace with a low wall, so you had to walk through the patio area to the front door.  There was a host at the front door and we said in our best bad Italian, "Good evening!"  Blah blah blah.  And implied we wanted a table for two.

The host nods and disappears into the restaurant.  Eventually he comes back with two menus.  We think we are going inside.  It is warm and lovely and candles and wine and people laughing and eating.

But no.

He puts us on one of the patio table outside, the furthest from the restaurant, in the corner, in the dark.

I am not exaggerating.

We are both sitting there going, "What just happened?"

I say to Matt, "Umm...what is going on?"

Matt says, "I don't know."

I narrow my eyes.  "Yes, you do.  They are assholes.  They don't like us."

"Oh?"

"Because we're Americans."

Now, I obviously can't PROVE this, but it's one of those things that you can't necessarily describe but you know it when it happens to you.  It's like sexual harassment for women.  A look.  An intonation.  A turn of the head.  Just a manner of speaking.  It is sometimes incredible subtle, but it's there.  You can smell it like a fart, hanging in the air, staining everything.

Matt is giving him the benefit of the doubt.  "You think so?"

"I know so."  Now I'm pissed.  "He doesn't even KNOW us!  That dick!"

After a very long time, even by Italian standards, a waiter takes our order.

Other people come and are seated inside.  We are left alone on a dark patio for the entire dinner.

I drink a few glasses of wine and am slightly tipsy.  I'm waiting for the check.  And waiting.  And waiting.

Matt gets up and walks to the sidewalk to light his cigarette.  He smokes and stares into the restaurant.  After a moment he speaks.  "You know, we could just run off right now."

He said the right thing to the wrong person.

"Yeah, ha!  Let's do it!"

He may have thought I was joking, but I'm fueled by a dangerous combination of vino and righteous indignation.  I practically knock the chair to the ground and leap over the wall to the sidewalk.  "Hahaha!  Assholes!"  I run past Matt up the hill and I'm twenty feet down the road before he realizes what his batass crazy wife just did.

He flings his cigarette into the street and starts running after me.  I'm laughing like a loon.

Then a problem happens.  Have you ever tried to sprint a mile, uphill, on wet cobblestones, after eating an entire plate of pesto gnocchi and three glasses of wine?  No?  Well, I don't recommend it.

A hot stabbing pain enters my chest.  Perhaps I'm having a heart attack.  Perhaps the Roman waiter has shot me with a Taser.  Perhaps the Lord himself has reached down to smite me.

I feel like my chest and stomach are going to explode.  "Uuunngghh!"  I bend over and press my fingers into my side, but I'm still scared enough to look back because I hear someone running after me.

It's Matt.  He's wheezing and laughing.  "Hurry!"  I scream.  "Let's go this way."

I ignore the pain and go down a side street.

It turns out to be a dead end.  We ran up the one road that has no outlet.  We are like those idiot people you see on episodes of Cops.

"Shit!"

"Oh my God, we have to go back!"

"They'll see us!"  I really feel like puking now.


Long story short, we walk back and look at the restaurant.  They still haven't come out to bring our check.  We walk quickly past and to another side street that takes us down the hill into a main thoroughfare.  I still want to run and keep looking behind me. I take of my jacket and Matt says, "Yeah, that was interesting."

"He deserved it.  Jerk."

"I bet he really loves Americans now."

We both start laughing.

A while later Matt says, "You know, we only made one mistake."

"Running up the hill?"

"No, we should have ordered the EXPENSIVE bottle of wine."

Room without a View -- Part 7

Okay, I will try to get this all wrapped up here.

We went to St. Peter's Basilica the next morning, early, before the crowds showed up. It is huge, it is ornate, it has a lot of marble (found out later that a lot of that marble was brought over from the Colosseum). We saw Michelangelo's Pieta and there were also places for guests to "confess". I was working on thinking of one... "Bless me Father, it has been 32 years since my last confession....I've been eating pasta and ice cream like it's going out of style... but I don't feel guilty." You could also buy little plastic Mary bottles from the Vatican bookshop to be filled with holy water. At 2 euros it was a total bargain.

Then we toured the papal tombs; we found out later that there is also catecomb tour under the church, which sounded pretty interesting, but didn't get around to doing it. Next time. Also for next time, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican museums. By the time we got out of the Basilica and walked around the corner to the museum and chapel entrance, the line was around the block. No way, I thought - I just didn't want to see it that bad.

We spent most of our time just walking around - at first when we got to Rome, it was overwhelming and neither of us was "into" it, actually we both kind of wanted to go home. So we slowed down and took our time, and after 6 days we really started enjoying ourselves. There is too much to see and if you try to be a good tourist and do everything, you will end up hating it.

One day we just decide to take the train out to the coast. The line is actually an extension of the subway, so you can't beat a $1 train ride. So we get off in this little town and head in the direction of the ocean. We find it and walk up the beach, and there we spot a restaurant called IL Dolfino. It is lunchtime so we walk up to the open air deck where everyone is eating and have one of the best afternoons, just sitting and eating and drinking wine. We were the only Americans around, and then some British ladies sit down by us. We get to talking and I learn that one is a painter who divides her time between London and Rome. "Next time you come," she tells me, "You can stay at my apartment." She gives me her name and number. Just like that...

Another very enjoyable day was spent taking a tour of the Colosseum, The Roman Forum, and the Palatine (the hill where Rome was founded). I recommend again to take a guided tour because I got a lot more out of it that way.

For those of you who have seen the movie Gladiator... I did have the urge to stand in the arena and scream, Russell Crowe-like, "Are you NOT entertained?" Of course, there is nowhere to stand, you can see down into the labyrinth where they held the animals that went to fight in the arena. Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix in the movie) it turns out, actually was a fantastic gladiator who never lost a fight, probably due to the fact that all the fights were fixed...considering he was the emperor's son, so he was not killed by Maximus like in the movie. He was, however, batshit crazy.

The Romans were pretty resourceful people; they used convicts and all the animals that got slaughtered in the fights were won by members of the crowd in a lottery system. "Seat Number 357, come on down! You win a hunk of rhino butt!" So nothing went to waste. The games went on until about 450 A.D. or so until the emperor of the time, I forget who, under pressure from the powerfully growing Christian religion, ended the practice. Me and Matt looked at each other with the same thought... "Why do those pesky Christians have to ruin everyone's fun?" I thought they should bring the whole gladiator thing back into fashion, then we wouldn't have such overcrowded prisons.

Then I remembered we have a bunch of thugs and criminal types beating on each other for the crowds enjoyment even today. It's called the NFL.

We took a tour of the Forum that afternoon. The actual real Roman Forum is a small square in the center of the ruins. This is where the debates were held. The only thing more important to Romans than money was the ability to be a good orator. It was the only way a man could become a senator in the republic. It didn't matter who your family was or the wealth you had or how smart you were or how popular. If you didn't have a quick wit and tongue and the ability to move the crowd with your public speaking you didn't stand a chance. Today I think Ronald Reagan would have made it, and Bill (it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is...) Clinton probably would have, but George (man and fish can be friends) W? Fuggehtaboutit... Not a chance.

This forum is where Mark Antony made his famous speech (Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!) after Julius Caeser was murdered and the crowd was screaming for revenge. To be standing at that same spot definitely drove home the point that this is history, this actually happened, and it happened right there, and Julius Caeser's body was brought right here and suddenly these events seemed actual and true and not some vague description in a book, or a scene from a play or movie. It gave me goosebumps.

Then we took a tour of the Palatine, where the emperors built their palaces. Our guide talked about Nero and how he had a very bad childhood because his mother was supremely evil and demented. So Nero was known for being something of a spoiled, bratty, crazy emperor who liked to have a lot of dinner parties. It wasn't uncommon to have 50 courses for these parties and if you got invited to one, it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Apparently, if you couldn't eat all your food, Nero would get upset. He would think you didn't like the food, didn't like the chef, and really didn't like him. He would take it personally. Forget about being sent to your room, you might get killed for not enjoying all your dinner! This is why guests sometimes had to wander outside to the vomitorium to make room for more.

I noticed Matt looking off into the distance with a contemplative look. I thought he was admiring the view, so I asked him what he thought.
"You know, Moo," (my nickname, don't ask) he said. "I think I could do it."
"Do what?"
"Fifty courses."

If anyone knows Matt, they know that if any human could survive Nero's feast, it would be him. If you don't know Matt, know that he once ate 2 Chipotle burritos in one sitting. On a dare.
"I think you could do it," I said.
He nodded, "You know, you just gotta pace yourself."
"And puke a couple times," I said.

And with that we watched the beautiful sun set over the eternal city.
-The End

I hope you enjoyed my travelogue, and I hope you are inspired to take your own Italian vacation. I will definitely be going back.

Room without a View -- Part 6

We finally take the train from Florence to Rome... but because we weren't thinking about the fact that this is a big holiday weekend (everyone takes off on Nov. 1 for All Saints Day, and heck, the Italians figure if there gonna take off on a Friday they might as well extend that through Monday!) the only seats left on the Eurostar are in first class, so we have to buy them. Apparently, everyone and their grandma is going to Rome for the weekend.

"Just bend over and take it," I tell Matt, who swears at the ticket machine when he sees the price.

We get to Rome in the ugly gray drizzly afternoon; I don't understand why all train yards look so unbelievably grim and depressing, but they do. We get on the little subway and in two stops we are at Barberini station and come up into Rome by the Fontana fountain. We aren't sure where to go so we stand a minute to look at the map. Pretty soon another old man with a spiffy hat and walking cane stops to ask if we need help. Our hotel is right next to the Trevi fountain and he tells us how to get there. I don't know what it is about these old Italian guys but they sure like to stop and help, they are not in any rush to get anywhere, like everyone else in Rome seems to be.

We finally find the Trevi fountain and the gobs of people standing there taking pictures, and of course, throwing in money. I did throw my coin in, so I guess that means I will be coming back to Rome. We both wondered what they did with all that money with the millions of people throwing coins in it every year. I looked at it and said, "You know, with all those coins you would never have to pay for another espresso or gelato for the rest of your life!" Then I wondered when they clean the fountain -- turns out they drained it and cleaned it on Monday, and when we walked past it that morning, all the money was cleaned out as well. Who knows where it goes.

Our B&B, The 3 Coins, is around the back end of the fountain, almost within spitting distance. We walk up 3 flights of stairs to the B&B and check in. Our rooms aren't ready yet so we leave our luggage and go out to the street and poke around a bit. I stop to get another gelato and then find a place to eat.... again.

We go back to the room in a few hours because we are tired and then go to our room which is on the 4 floor. We decided to share a bath this time to save some money, the hotels in Rome are really, really expensive, especially if you want to stay in the popular areas. We get to our room and discover it is perfect....if you're a munchkin from the land of Oz! Seriously, I think it was a closet that somebody tried to make a room out of. It wouldn't have been bad except for the fact the ceiling sloped down quickly to one side. If I was sitting up in the bed on the far side my head was almost touching the ceiling. I was pissed, so I went down to talk to the lady as nice as I could and asked if there were any other rooms. Of course, it was booked solid, so we were stuck with the Hobbit Room.

Here was my pivotal moment.... I could piss and moan for the rest of the trip, or I could get my "mind right" and suck it up and enjoy Rome anyway. I let myself whine for 5 minutes (Matt thinks more like 15 minutes) and then accepted my fate.

I turned to Matt, "I need to go get a good dinner. And lots more wine!" So we did.
On the plus side, we had a TV in the room again, so we could watch soap operas and MTV in Italian! For some reason, music videos look even more ridiculous in a foreign language.

Next edition... St. Peter's and shopping and we master the railway system.